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CONSTITUTION THE TRUE EEMEDT. 



OF 



HON. EDGAR COWAN, 

OF PENNSYLVANIA, 



ON THE 



CONCURRENT RESOLUTION OF THE 
COMMITTEE OF FIFTEEN. 



DELIVERED IN TEE SENATE OP THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 2, 1S66. 



The Senate resumed the consideration of the following resolution of the House of 
Representatives: 

Resolved by the House of Representatives, (the Senate concurring,) That in order to close agita- 
tion upon a question which seems likely to disturb the action of the Government, as well as to'qui- 
et the uncertainty which is agitating the minds of the people of the eleven States which have been 
declared to be in insurrection, no Senator or Hepresentativtj shall be admitted into either branch 
of Congress from any of said States until Congress shall have declared such State entitled to such 
representation. 

The pending question being on the amendment of Mr. Hendricks to insert the 
words "the inhabitants of" after "eleven States." 

Mr. COWAN. Mr. President, in any remarks I may make to-day, I shall not at- 
tempt to suggest any new remedies for the evils which now afilict the country. I 
shall only try to show that the old are amply sufficient, and tliat there is not the 
least necessity for going outside the Constitution and laws in order to vindicate the 
Government. We do not need^to amend the one or to remodel the other and es- 
pecially we ought not to violate the one and disregard the other in order to attain 
our ends. 

I am glad to say to the country that I only state in this the views of the Presi- 
dent. He has sworn to support and maintain the Constitution and see that the 
laws are fully executed, and he will stand there, no matter what comes. 

My object now, then, is simply to induce a return to the great principles of the 
Government which for a period of three quarters of a century were undisputed 
and which gave to us a progress and prosperity heretofore unparalleled in the 
world. 

Mr. President, the United States are in themselves a body-politic or corporation 
created originally by thirteen States, with certain powers conferred upon it by a 
great charter called "The Constitution of the United States," which from the year 
1787 till the present, with a few amendments not material here, has continued to 
be the law of its existence and the measure of its powers and authority. In and 
by the terms of the Constitution it was provided that new States might be admit- 
ted by the Congress into the Union, and under this authority, from time to time 
States have been admitted till the number amounts to thirty-six. ' 

The States that originally joined in creating the Union were themselves bodies- 
politic or corporations, with governing powers granted to them by their people 
supreme, except so far as limited in their constitutions and the Constitution of the 
United States. The new States have also their charters or constitutions, made by 
their people, and, when once admitted, stand upon the same footing in all respects 
as the original States, 

The Constitution further provides that the Senate of the United States shall be 
ewnposed of two Senators from each State, acd that each House shall be the jndee 
of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members. 

Five years ago, upon the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency, the secession 
party of the cotton States, deeming it a fitting occasion to commence the carrying 
out of their Bchemes, and being in possession of most of the places of power in thos« 



EL (^2 
■CtL 



States, they undertook to repeal the ordinances by which they had bound them- 
selves in the Union by enacting ordinances of secession. They then expelled the 
United States authorities from the possession of their territories in all of their 
parts, except two small forts, Pickens and Sumter. In the mean time the Congress 
was in session and the President was in the Executive Mansion. They had full 
power to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, and they had 
full power to call forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union" and suppress 
the insurrection. They did nothing, and for four mouths the people of the cotton 
States were left at the mercy of the conspirators, with no protection and no assist- 
ance. The Government was paralyzed, and the rebels, without let or hindrance, 
established a confederate government in fact and in full possession, which had the 
power to compel the obedience of the people to all its decrees and laws; and this 
was done with an iron hand. The people on their part, without organization, 
without means, looked in vain to the United States for aid and deliverance, but 
none came. They voted, when they had a chance, in opposition to the scheme of 
secession, but their votes were disiegarded and the usurpation went on to its com- 
pletion. 

The 4th day of March, 1S61, came, and Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated. There 
was no Congress. The Army was demoralized, the Navy was distrusted, and the 
Treasury was empty. No one knew what to do ; wise men hesitated ; timid men 
quailed ; and it was doubtful whether we would attempt to rescue the people, sup- 
press the insurrection, and put the Union again in possession. This suspense last- 
ed till the r2th of April, 1861, when the rebels, emboldened by the apparent weak- 
ness of the Government, opened fire upon Fort Sumter to drive the United States 
from the possession of their last foothold in South Carolina. The first shot settled 
the question forever ; almost every man in the North started as if struck by it, and 
rushed to offer his service to the President. War was imminent, and sides must 
be taken. 

Mr. Greeley, in his American Conflict, volume one, page 450, says : 

" Secession, as we have seen, had been initiated by the aid of the most positive assurances that, 
once fairly in progress, every slave §tate would speedily and surely unite in it; yet, up to this 
time but seven of the fifteen slave States, having a decided minority of the population , and a still 
more decided minority of the white inhabitants, of that 'section,' had justified the sanguine prom- 
ise. On the contrary the so-cailed ' border States,' with Tennessee and Arkansas, had voted not 
to secede, and most of them by overwhelming majorities ; save that Kentucky, Maryland, and Del- 
aware had scarcely deigned to take the matter into consideration. And, despite vice president 
Stephen's glowing rhetoric, it was plain that the seceded States did not and could not suffice to 
form a nation'. Already the talk in their aristocratic circles of protectorates and imported princes 
betrayed their own consciousness of this. Either to attack the Union, and thus provoke a war, or 
to sink gradually but surely out of existence beneath a general appreciation of weakness, insecu- 
rity, and intolerable burdens, was the only choice left to the plotters and upholders of secession. 

"And, though signally beaten in the recent elections of the non-seceded slave States, they had 
yet a very strong party in most of those States; stronger in wealth, in social standing, and in po- 
litical activity and influence than iu numbers. A majority of these had been able to bring the con- 
ventions or Legistures of their respective States to say. with tolerable unanimity. ' If the Black 
Republicans attempt to coerce the seceded States we will join them in armed resistance.' It was 
indispensable, therefore, to their mutual purposes that there should bs 'coercion.' 

" So late as the 4th— a month after the return of their 'commissioners' from the abortive peace 
conference — Virginia, through her convoation, by the decisive vote of 89 to 45, refused to pass an 
ordinance of secession." 

In March, Tennessee voted 91,803 Union and 24,749 for convention, {Ihid, page 
481,) but afterward the Legislature entered into articles with the confederacy giv- 
ing it control of the military force and public property — Senate, yeas 14, nays 6, 
absent or not voting 5; House, yeas 43, nays 15, absent or not voting 18. This 
was the 7th of May, 1861, and an ordinance of secession was ratified by the peo- 
ple on the 8th of June following, under the following circumstances, says Mr. 
Greeley, page 483 — and I read with great pleasure from Mr. Greeley, because if 
there is any man in the country who ought to be authority with the dominant 
party in the ScLate, I think it is Mr. Greeley : 

"The network of railroads checkering the State, and especially the great line connecting Vir- 
ginia, through Knoxville and Chattanooga, with the cotton States, was instantly covered with 
rebel soldiers, and all freedom of opinion and expression on the side of the Union completely crush- 
ed out. Governor Harris, on the 24th of June, issued hii proclamation declaring that the vote of 
the 8th had resulted as follows : 

Separation. No Separation. 

East Tennessee 14, 780 32, 923 

Middle Tennessee 58,265 8,198 

West Tennessee 29,127 C,117 

Military Camps 2,741 

Total 104,913 47,238 

"But a convention of the people of East Tennessee — a region wherein the immense preponder- 
ance of Union sentiments still commanded some degree of freedom for Unionists — held at Green- 
ville on the 17th, and wherein thirty-one counties were represented by delegates, adopted a decla- 
ration of grievances wherein they say : 

" We, the people of East Tennessee, again assembled in a convention of our delegates, make the 



•Tollowing declaration in addition to that heretofore promulgated by us at Knoxville on tlie the 30th 
and 31st days of May last. 

" So far as we can learn, the election held in this State on the 8th-day of the present month was 
free, with but few exceptions, in no part of the State other than E^stTeinie.ssce In the larger i)or- 
tion of Middle and West Tennessee no speeches or discussions in favor ofthcUnion were permitted. 
■Union papers were not allowed to circulate. Measures were taken in some parts of Tennessee in 
defiance of the constitution and laws, which allow folded tickets, to have the ballots numbered in 
such manner as to mark and expose the Union voters," 

From the ssine volume, page 465, we may learn how North Carolina was carried 
into the whirlpool of rebellion. Here it is: 

■'The State of North Caraliaa, though never deliberately and intelligently hostile to the Union, 
became a much easier prey to the conspirators. Her Democratic Legislature — reconvened at Ra- 
ieiifh, November 19, 1860 — had refused, a month later, to pass a bill to arm the State, though visit- 
ed and and entreated to that end by Hon. Jacob Thompson, then a member of Mr. Buchanan's Cab- 
inet; and had adjourned without even calling a convention. This, as we have seen, did not pre- 
vent Governor Ellis taking military possession of the Federal forts near Beaufort and Wilmington 
(January 2) on the pretext that, if he did not do it, a mob would! He proceeded to convene the 
Legislature in extra session, and to worry it into calling a convention for which an election was 
duly held. But the act making this call provided that the people, when electing delegates, might 
vote that the convention should or should not meet. They profited by the gracious permission, 
and while electing a Union convention by an immense majority; voted — to guard against acci- 
dents — that the convention should not meet; their vote — quite a heavy one — standing, for hold- 
ing, 46,672; against holding, 47,823; majority for no convention, 651. This vote temporarily 
checked all open, aggresive movements in the interest of disunion, but did arrest nor diminish the 
efforts of its champions. On the contrary, a great State rights convention was assembled at Ra- 
leigh on the 22d of .March, and largely attended by disunionists from Soutli Carolina, Virginia, and 
other States. Its spirit and its demonstrations left no doubt of the fixed resolve of the master-spir- 
its to take their State out of the Union, even in defiance of a majority of her voters. But they con- 
cluded to await the opportunity which South Carolina was preparing. This opportunity was the 
taking of Fort Sumter; when Governor Ellis proceeded to seize the United States branch mint at 
Charlotte and the Fedei'al arsenal at Fayetteville ; and thereupon to call an extra session of the 
Legislature. This session commenced May 1, and in a few days thereafter resulted in the passage 
of the following: 

" 'Whereas by an unwarranted and unprecedented usurpation of power by the Administration 
at Washington city, the Government of the United States of America has been subverted; and 
whereas the honor, dignity, and welfare of the people of North Carolina imperatively demand 
that they should resist, at all hazards, such usurpation ; and whereas there is an actual state of rev- 
olution existing in North Carolina, and our sister state of Virginia, making common cause with us, 
U threatened with invasion by the said Administration: Now, therefore, 

" ' Resolved, That his Excellency the Governor be authorized to tender to Virginia, or to the gov- 
ernment of the confederate States, such portions of our volunteer forces now, or that may be here- 
after, under his command as may not be necessary for the immediate defense of North Carolina. 

Here is his version of the way Arkansas ordinance was procured, to be found on 
page 486 : 

" The Arkansas convention assembled .about the 1st of March, and on the 16th was waited on by 
William S. Oldham, a member of the confederate Congressand a commissioner from Jefferson Davis, 
bearing a message from that potentate dated March 9, four daysafter the adjournment of Congress, 
and when the contents of Mr. Lincoln's inaugural were familiar to the entire South. The conven- 
tion listened to Mr. Davis's letter wherein he dilated on the identity of institutions and of interests 
between his confederacy and the State of Arkansas, urging the adhesion of the latter to the former ; 
and after taking two days to deliberate, a majority — 39 to 85 — voted not to secede from the Union. 
The convention proceeded, however, to resolve that a vote of the people of their State should be ta- 
ken on the 1st of August ensuing — the ballots reading 'seeession' or 'cooperation" — theconvention to 
stand adjourned to August 17, when if it should appear that secession had received a majority this 
should be regarded as an instruction from their constituents to pass the ordinance which they had 
now rejected ; and so having elected five delegates to a proposed conference of the border States at 
Frankfort, Kentucky, May '27, theconvention stood adjourned. Yet this identical convention was 
reconvened ujion the reception of the news from Fort Sumter, and proceeded with little hesitation 
to pass an ordinance of secession by a vote of 69 to 1. That ordinance asserts that this convention, 
by resolves adopted March 11, had pledgtd 'the State of Arkansas to resist to the last extremity 
.any attempt on the part of such power te coerce any State that seceded from the old Union.' The 
ordinance proceeds to set forth that the Legislature of Arkansas had, on the 18th October, 1S36, by 
virtue of authority vested therein by the convention which framed the State Constitution, adopted 
certain propositions made to that State by Congress, which propositions were freely accepted, rati- 
fied, and irrevocably confirmed as articles of compact and Union between the State of Arkansas and 
the United States, which irrevocable compact this convention proceeded formally to revoke and an- 
nul, and to declare 'repealed, abrogated, and fully set aside,' by the iilentical act which witdrawi 
Arkansas from the Union afid absolves its citizens from all allegiance to its Government." " 

On summing up the results of all the indications of public opinion, it is im- 
possible to dissent from the conclusion of Mr. Greeley's twenty- second chapter, 
page 351 : 

" The slave States and District which had not united in the movement were as follows : 

Statei. Free population in ISW. Slax-es. Total 

Arkansas 324,323 111,104 435,427 

Delaware 110,420 1,798 112,218 

Kentucky 930,'223 225,490 1,155,713 

Maryland 599,846 87,188 687,034 

Missouri 1,067,352 114,965 1,182,317 

North Carolina 661,586 331,081 992,667 

Tennessee 834,063 27S,784 1,109,847 

Virginia 1,105,192 490,887 1,593,079 

District of Columbia 71,895 3,131 75,076 

Total. ., 6,764,900 1,641,478 7,346,078 



"So that, after the conspiracy had had complete possession of the southern mind for three months, 
with the southern members of the Cabinet, nearly all the Federal officers, most of Governors and 
oUier State functionaries, and seven eighths of the prominent and active politicians, pressing iton, 
ajid no force exerted against nor in any manner threatening to resist it, a majority of the slave 
States, with two thirds of the free population of tlio entire slaveholding region, were openly and 
positively adverse to it; either because they regarded the alleged grievances of the South as exag- 
gerated if not unreal, or because they believed that those wrongs would rather be aggravated than 
cured by disunion." 

Now, to sum up, hers is a free population of over five and a half millions in the 
insurrectionary States, of which, Mr. Greeley asserts two thirds to have been loyal 
and true to the Union in spite of the extraordinary influences brought to bear 
upon them, leaving not quite two millions represented by secession. But to under- 
stand this in a still clear light, it is necessary to analyze this two millions and take 
a look at its elements before we undertake to decide upon its loyalty. 

Arkansas had a white populatian of 324,323 in 1860, and she cast a vote of 54,- 
050, showing that the adult males over twenty-one years of age were almost ex- 
actly one sixth of the whole. Who were the other five sixths? "Women and 
children. Yes, sir, 270,000 poople in Arkansas, whom nobody would dream of 
charging with treason, who could not well commit it under any circumstances, 
much lees in those which surrounaed them. 

Again, 25,321 adult men voted against Mr. Breckinridge, against 28,732 for him, 
and I suppose nobody pretends but that those who voted for Douglas and Bell were 
Union men, whatever the others might be. But who were the others ? They 
were 28,000 of the rank and file of Am<>rican voters, and I will consider for the 
argumei I's sake that they were as intelligent as any equal number taken from any 
other part of the country. How many of them voted for Breckinridge with in- 
tent to destroy the Union? No man can say that if that had been the issue dis- 
tinctly pronounced, that 14,000 would have so voted, nor that 7,000 would have 
done so, nor indeed that any number would have done so, except the actual lead- 
ers of the movement. 

So much for Arkansas. Let us look at Tennessee next. Her white population 
was 834,000, and her votes in 1860, were, Bell 69,274, Douglas 11,350, and Breck- 
inridge 64,209, or a few more than one sixth of the whole, and showing a majority 
of morn than 16,000 votes for the Union candidates. Bell and Douglas. She had 
700,000 or nearly, of innocent women and children, and 80,000 loyal voters at 
least, and if we add to these the thousands and tens of thousands who voted for 
Breckinridge without for one moment thinking of treason, among them the present 
President of the United States, whose loyalty has been tried in the fire, how many 
actually guilty conspirators can you point out in Tennessee? Will any one hazard 
the assertion that 10,000 or even 5,000 original conspirators could be found there? 
Let him hesitate. 

Next North Carolina. Her white population was 661,586, and her votes in 1860 
were, for Douglas 2,701, Bell 44,990, Breckinridge 48,638, or nearly one for every 
seven and a half of her people, and all I have said of Tennessee may well apply to 
her. Virginia prejents herself in the same category with a vote somewhat larger 
for her population, and a majority of more than 18,000 for the Union candidates. 
And so I might go on, with every State, county, and neighborhood throughout the 
South, and after sifting the matter to the very bottom, it would be found that the 
number of the guilty contrivers of secession is so small when compared with the 
masses of the people, or even the masses of the voters, that it sinks into insignifi- 
cance. Nor is this strange. It is only what the world has always known, and the 
po-tulate upon which it has always acted. There never can be in any community 
as highly civilized as ours any very great number of men capable of the crime of 
treason, and it is well it is so, otherwise society would enjoy few intervals of peace- 
ful repose. War would be the rule and not the exception. The people in all ages 
have been disposed to yield themselves to leaders, and to fallow them, not always 
with a blind obedience, but with confidence that their trust would not be abused. 

How many responsible leaders were there in the seceding States when the United 
States authorities were ousted from the possession of their territories? How many 
guilty men controlled the movement up till the time they had the people wholly in 
their power? Because from that time forward you will remember that no man 
who had not taken part before, can be or ought to be responsible except in so far 
as he suffers in the war which follows. Were there ten thousand, or were there 
but five thousand? In answering this question let every man look to his own 
county or district, and let him fix the number of men in it who ought to be held 
for the disorders sure to result for an attempt of this. kind. I think he will find 
the number he would ever think of arraigning to be very few. 

Where, too, are most of those guilty men of the South to-day ? Is not much the 
larger number of them gone ; some dead in the course of nature, Floyd, Yanoey, 
and others ; some dead on the battle-fields, as Jackson, Barksdale, and others; some 



are in exile in foreign lands as Mason, Slidel', Price, WigfalJ, and others; so that 
those who remain are incapable of great mischief, or only of such mischief as we 
have ample means of preventing by recourse to the common and obvious legal 
remedies. 

If any man asks how it eame that the people, being in favor of the Union, could 
be overcome and led away into such a terrible rebellion as we have just put down 
without being themselves guilty, I will answer him that in this case their confidence 
was abused by their leaders; they were for a long time induced to believe that these 
were their friends, with no motive in view but the good of the whole country; that 
their zeal in their behalf was the result of excessive patriotism and not heated by 
■an unseen fire; that they were their safest defenders against the greater strength of 
the North because they were loudest in their warnings of danger from that qua»- 
ter, and therefore they bestowed upon them all the offices and places in the gift of 
the strongest and most popular party in their midst. All usurpers achieve places 
of power by great apparent devotion to the interests of the people, and I suppose 
the cruelty of the tyrant has always been pitiless in the same ratio as his former 
patriotism was ardent. His shortest route to the throne is when he marches 
through the most crowded thoroughfares bearing aloft the flag of liberty ; and the 
devil is never half so successful and bloody in his crusades as when he puts on 
the armor of euperior'sanctity and walks humbly under the banner of the cross. 

Again, the people are easily misled by terror or overcome by fear. The v;"ick- 
ed and designing combine, contrive, and organize; the virtuous and unambitious 
pursue their avocations; the first multiply their power indefinitely by acting in 
concert according to a preconcerted plan; the latter, however numerous, are as 
an army without leaders and without discipline, an easy prey to their captors. 
Here, too, perhaps, lies the true secret of the necessity for government, inasmuch 
as it is the organized force of the people kept constantly on foot for the purpose of 
furnishing for them a rallying point from which to resist and crush other and inimi- 
cal combinations against the peace of society. Hence nothing so much aids in a 
revolutionary movement in a confederacy as that the insurgents should get holi 
of the governments of the States composing it, or some of them, because the 
treason is easy in proportion to the control the traitor can exercise over the 
insignia of power among the people. Let him carry the loyal flag, and thousands 
will follow it as though in loyal hands. Let him sign with the national seal, and. 
thousands will respond as though the impress was made by a loyal ofiicer. The 
Government of England halted at one timebecause James H had thrown the great 
fleal into the Thames] How to get along without that piece of iron was a puz- 
zle, but it shows the reverence men everywhere entertain for tiie insignia, the 
emblems, of power. 

Thus in our case, when the secessionists procured themselves to be made Gover- 
Tiors, judges, and legislators all over the southern States, according to their several 
constitutions and laws, they were in a position to command the obedience of the 
southern people wherever they were not protected by superior fort^e. Nor will it 
be found so easy for the common people to decide between the State and the United 
States when they are in conflict as mojt persons thoughtlessly suppose. Lawyers 
may be very clear; but the people are not all lawyers, and are not expected to 
judge correctly of either titles or jurisdiction; they usually follow those who are 
in possession of the tribunals to which they are accustomed. Hear Mr. Greeley on 
some of the machinery which may be brought to bear upon them by means of secret 
societies, organized with the sole view of overawing them, and compelling their co- 
operation in deeds of violence, and then let Senators say what they would have 
done themselves in such a reign of terror. I read from page 350, et seq: 
/' 
" Before the opening of 1861, a perfect reign of terror had been established throughout the Gulf 
■States. A secret order, known as 'Kniglits of the Golden Circle,' or as 'Knights of the Columbian 
Star,' succeeding that knovfn, six or seven years ealier, as tlie 'Urder of the Lone Star,' having for 
its ostensible object the aquisition of Cuba, Mexico, and Central America, and the establishment of 
slavery in the two latter, but really oijerating in the interest of disunion, had spread its network 
of lodges, grips, passwords, and alluring mystery all over the South, and had ramifications even in 
some of the cities of the adjoining free States. Other clubs, more or less secret, were known as 'the 
Precipitators,' 'Vigilance Committee,' 'Minute Men,' and by kindred designations; butallofthem 
(were sworn to fideiity to 'southern rights,' while their members were gradually prepared and ripen- 
ed, wherever any ripening was needed, for the task of treason. Whoever ventured tocondemn and 
repudiate secession as the true and sovereign remedy for southern wrongs, in any neighborhood 
■where slavery was dominant, was thenctforth a marked man, to be stigmatized and hunted down 
as a 'Lincolnite,' ■'submissionist,' or 'abolitionist.' One refugee planter from southern Alabama, 
himself a slaveholder, but of northern birth, who barely escaped a violent death because of an in- 
tercepted letter from a relative in Connecticut, urging him to free his slaves and return to the 
North, as he had promised, stated that he had himselfbeen obliged to join the 'Minute Jlen' of Lis 
neighborhood for safety, and had thus been compelled to assist in hanging six men of northern birth 
because of their Union sentiments, and he personally knew that not less than one hundred men had 
been hung in his Bection of Georgia, during the sii weeks which preceded his escape in December, 

186a '^ 



And at this point I wish Senators to pause before determining, upon the guflt of 
the people of any State in circumstances like these. Let us see if the fault was on.' 
their side. 

Where were they to look for protection against all this terrible machinery of 
parties, secret societies, precipitators, vigilance committees, and minute-men, backed 
as they were by the State officers everywhere? What power had they established, 
to stand watch and ward over them at such a time? It was the Federal Govern- 
ment of the United States, having authority over the armies, the militia, and the^ 
navies of the United States. It was-, too, the very object of all these threats, and! 
was openly notified and cognizant of all these peparations against it. It was- 
bound by the very law of its own existence to defend' itself, and it was further 
bound, nay, it was of the very essence of its Constitution, to protect the freedom; 
and liberties of the people. It was created for that purpose, and was entitled to 
the allegiance of the people only whenWt performed its trust. 
U hat then, I ask, did it do? 

Ml". President, I tremble when I answer, nothing, nothing; but, on the other 
hand, allowed itself to be ignominiously stripped of its a/senals, forts, and public- 
property of every kind all over the disaffected region. STot a gun was fired, not a- 
sword drawn, to sustain its authority or vindicate its honor. Congress accuses the 
President, and the President accuses Congress, for these shameful derelictions of 
duty. I leave it to the future to decide between them; it is enough that we do 
now know that there never was such a great breach of public trust before. Never 
before had men entrusted with the government of a great empire counting millions- 
upon millions of people loyal and true to it abdicated their high prerogatives so- 
basely ; never before were a people so shamefully deprived' of that protection which 
was due to them as the consideration for their allegiance. 

And yet it is this people, thus betrayed by their leaders, by their State govern- 
ments, by tie Federal Government, thus defenseless in the very face of civil war, 
who voted every time they were free to do so for the old Union and the old flag; 
with a pertinacity and a resolution of which every lover of his country and its 
people ought to be proud. And* it is this same people who, after being rescued 
from the grasp of the conspiracy, are constantly held' up to the country as though 
they had been all traitors. And while the Federal Government is now in undispu- 
ted possession of all the national domain, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, with 
ample means and opportunity to seize upon and arrest all original conspirators and 
leaders in secession, all Knights of the Lone Star or Golden Circle, all vigilance 
committees, all precipitators and minute-men, with courts, judges, juries, marshals, 
etc., and all the machinery proper for their trial and conviction, yet no one has 
been punished, nor have I seen or heard of a single one of all the furious patriots- 
with which this Congress teams, and who never speak of the South without telling-; 
you it is swarming with traitors, who has made the slightest effort to enforce the 
law against any one of these really guilty persona. Not one of them has sued out" 
a warrant, not one has made an arrest, not one of them ha-s even asked that the law 
and the law alone shall decide; not one. And yet these same persons spend week, 
after week and month after month in devising unlawful measures and schemes for 
the punishment of the people, not as individuals in courts,, where they may be 
heard in their own defense, but as States and communities, in a Congress where 
Ih y are not represented, and where all are confounded together, loyal and disloyal, 
true men and traitors, innocent and guilty, tender women and blood"-stained minute- 
men, little children and grim demagogues, in one great mass, condemned as guilty, 
and punished as such -with a rigor that Austria has repented of and Russia aban- 
doned, it is hoped, forever. 

Mr. President, 1 am unable to express in terms sufficiently strong my condemna- 
tion of our cruelty to this rescued people. When I thiuk of the way we abandoned 
them in the outset, how we allowed them to get into the toils of the conspirator? 5, 
of the terrible war in which they were involved, of their desolate homes and de- 
vastated fields, I cannot think there is a human being wLo would say that they 
ought to suffer further. Whatever guilt may have been on their souls surely has 
been atoned for by what they have suffered in the war, and as the people thev are 
purged, and ought to stand purged in the forum of the nation. 

I say the people are purged; war always purges the people; but I want it dis- 
tinctly understood, that while I myself utter no cry for more blood, I will do all 
that lies in my way to punish any I think really guilty of treason in this rebellion. 
If I find one of this sort undertaking to thrust himself into the councils of the coun- 
try or to take the lead in public affairs, I will not 8pj>eal to the House of Represen- 
tatives nor to the Senate,nor to the President to prevent him; I will appeal to that 
which is higher still — the law, the expressed will of the American people. 1 will 
have him arrested by the law, arraigned by the law; I will offer evidence of his 
guilt to a jury of his peers, and I will not assail his State or its people. I will 



not involve the women and children of hia neighborhood in his guilt; nay, in my 
eyea his own wife and children shall be presumed innocent. He shall be heard in 
his defense fully, and confronted with the witnesses against him. lie may show 
everything which goes to show his innocence; he may show that the Federal Gov- 
ernment either did not or could not protect him ; that another government was 
over him which he durst not disobey. I would have all this done, soberly, sol- 
emnly, and patiently, in a court of justice, and aecoring to all xhe forms which have 
b«en adopted by us as befitting the dignity of the American people, so that all men 
should bow their heads reverently in presence of its majesty. If he was (.'onvicted, 
I would have him punished and made ignominious. Treason is a great, nay, the 
most heinous of all crimes, and ought to be punished; but it must be punished by 
the law, and not by Congress nor by the military nor by anybody but the law, ad- 
ministered by the judges and jurors in the courts. It is no answer to say to me 
that the courts are corrupt and the juries are tainted; the man who makes such an 
assertion asserts the infamy of his Government, the infamy of liis countrymen, and 
that the great Republic has failed to answer the ends for which it was established. 
The law is the will of the American people, and whenever the Government cannot 
or will not try and punish all offenses against that law, th^n the American people 
are at the mercy of offenders or tyrants. 

It is time we came to this, Mr. President. It will be the solution of all our difB- 
eulties, and relieve us from all our troubles; but as long as we endeavor to impress 
our people with the idea that the populations of the southern States are all rebels 
and traitors, that they are not to be punished in courts by the law, but in Congress 
by a deprivation of their rights as free peoples, then the further we go the worse 
we will fare, for the simple reason that we assume as a fact that which is a false- 
hood. It is not true that the southern people are now or ever were all traitors; 
and if the Government had given them the protection to which their allegiance 
entitled them, they never would have yielded themselves to rebellion. 

Let us, then, treat their people according to the great law of the Union, as free 
States, equal members in the Union, and if we punish at alt, let us punish individ- 
uals in the courts, where punishment alqpe can be inflicted. 

I now propose to ajiply the principles I have laid down to a solution of the ques- 
tion which now agitates the country, and I think they will be found effectual. And 
at the outset, I may ask in all sincerity, what the difference may be, in the eyes of 
the law, between putting down a great rebellion by armies in war and arresting a 
single felon who resists by a constable? Is not the difference to be found wholly 
in the number of persons engaged? Is not the object in both cases the same — to 
vindicate the laws? Is not the means the same, to use such force as to compel 
submission to the laws? Surely nobody can doubt this, " Let us see, then, what 
happens during the process. If the felon resists, the constable may kill him; so, if 
the rebels resist, the soldiers may kill them. When the felon yields, the constable 
turns him over to the law ; and no matter how heinous may have been his crime or 
how desparate his resistance, he has a right to be tried by the law and punished 
by the law. The constable being himself the mere creature of the law as such of- 
ficer, must yield his prisoner to the law; as a man simply, he has no power to touch 
a hair of his head. 

So it is with the rebel or rebels when they surrender to the President or to his 
generals; these have no power to touch a hair of the head of one of them; the law, 
which is supreme over Presidents, generals, and Congress, becomes the arbiter of 
their fate the moment they yield, and this for the most potential of all reasons, 
namely, that the American people have so willed it They have adopted it in their 
Constitution and enacted it in their laws, and no greater indignity could be offered 
to thf'm than for any one, no matter who, who should dare to substitute his will 
and his punishment upon any criminal for the law and its punishment; and no mat- 
ter how atrocious has been the crimes of the prisoner he has a right to appeal to 
the law against all people; this also is due to the law, because it wa« against the 
law he offended, and to the law he ought to make atonement. 

And now, Mr. President, this disposes of, or ought to dispose of, all the questions 
with which the country is so uselessly convulsed. These I propose to examine seria- 
tim, and show not only their legal absurdity but also their mischievous effect in 
preventing the pacification of the country. 

The first of these whimsies is that the rebellion destroyed the States whose people 
were engaged in it by a kind of incorporeal felo de se. not very clearly explained 
even by the authors of the charge. And, indeed, when we consider that the State 
is an artificial and not a natural person, a body-politic or corporation, existing 
merely in contemplation of law, not having a soul to be damned nor a body to be 
kicked, it is difficult to see how it could achieve the extraordinary feat of commit- 
ting suicide. It is said, however, this is done by forfeiture, as a punishment for 
crimes committed, not by the State I suppose, for folly has not yet gone that length, 



8 

but by its ofEcers and people. "Well, I have no objection to the punishment of iu- 
dividuals who commit crimes, but I would ask where it was or is the law that the 
State should die for the sins of the people. I guess, however, that those who advo- 
cate this theory really mean to say to the people of the rebel States, '"You have 
been so wicked recently that as a penalty therefore you shall not have a State at ail." 
But the people, wicked though they may be, still have a right to say, " Will you 
be good enough to show us where it is written in the Constitution or laws of the 
United States that we shall not have a State as a punishment for any crime or 
crimes whatever? If there is any such law we submit of eourse.'* 

Nobody has shown any such law. 

But perhaps the best answer to the felo de se hypothesis is in the fact that the 
States in question give the lie to it by persisting to be alive all the time they are 
alleged to be dead. And what is still more conclusive, not only alive but vigorous 
and in very nearly full functio-\ with territories, boundaries, inhabitants, constitu- 
tions, laws, Governors, Legislatures, and judiciaries, and more than all that, with 
the armies of the United States standing by, ready to defend them from all internal 
and external dangers. This is thought quite ample to repel the imputation of self- 
murder. 

The second sophism is equally fallacious, but far more cowardly, because being 
afraid to say to a living corporate body "You are dead," it says "You are in fine 
robust health to be sure, but for fear j'ou might overdo yourself we will take the 
task of government off your hands and govern your people ourselves as a conquered 
people." So you see it comes back to the old point precisely, namely, that the peo- 
ple are or ought to be deprived of their States as a penalty for crimes. 

Another class of these patriots disavow the dogmas of dead States and conquered 
peoples, but nevertheless sternly insist that having put down the rebellion at an 
enormous loss of men and money, we have now a right to impose terms upon the 
States in question before we restore them again to their old rights. Some of them 
call this requiring indemnity for the past and security for the future, a phrase that 
has about as much application to the suppression of an insurrection as it has to the 
operation of the courts of quarter sessions in dealing with riots. This demand is 
liable as usual to the same fatal objection which beset the others — it is without the 
sanction of either Constitution or law, or rather in direct contravention of both. 
We have seen that when the rebels surrendered they surrendered to the law, and 
if the law provided no mode by which we can impose conditions or make terms 
then we are at an end of it 

Again, there is another set still more metaphysical in their notions. They hold 
that although the rebel States are still States in the Union, yet, because they <vfere 
for awhile, on account of the rebellion, prevented from enjoying their rights in the 
Union, they are not now to be restored to those rights till Congress, either by law 
or concurrent resolution, (I do not know which,) has declared they ought to be so 
restored. And to fashion this business properly for the action of the two Houses 
is the work allotted to the somewhat famous commitee of fifteen. That body was 
instructed to inquire into the condition of the States which formed the so-called 
confederate States, Ac, and report whether they or any of them are entitled t-o be 
represented in either House of Congre s. This is the resolution, but it has been 
taken to be a little wider than its terms, and the committee has gone on to inquire 
into the condition of the people as well as into that of the States. So far as it is 
possible to know, it would seem that this inquiry is not as to the physical condition 
of the people, their religious or moral condition, nor their intellectual condition, 
but their loyal condition; and when that word is uttered there is a dead stop; no- 
dody attempts to define it or tell what they mean by it, only it is generally under- 
stood to be a clincher and unanswerable. 

Suppose we look at this word which serves so many uses to-day. What is a 
loyal man? What must he do, say, think or feel, to entitle him to the appellation* 
Usually he has been held to be one who submitted himself to the laws. He was 
thus contradistinguished from a rebellious man who resisted the laws. If this then 
is the meaning put upon it by the committee, their task may be performed soon 
and with some certainty, because the executive officers could soon report whetiier 
in any part of the country there was resistance to the laws on the part of the 
people. 

If, however, we depart from this, and inquire further into the condition of the 
people, it is hard to see where the end is. If it is to depend on some mental or 
emotional condition of the person examined, who is to judge? How completely 
must the secession opinion have been flogged out of him by the war? Will it do 
to say he gives it up, or must he go further and say he is convinced the other way 'i 
What must he think of slavery? That it was a curse to the master, or a curse to 
the slave, or to both? What ought to be his views on suffrage? Ought he to in- 
sist on universal suffrage, universal adult suffrage, or universal manhood suffrage? 



9 

Will he be requiied to believe in univereal negro suffrage, or may he eircumgorihe 
and limit it by a literary fence so high that a large number of negi'oes cannot 
jump it? 

Then again is it thought important to know what party these fellows would pre- 
fer, whether for or against the late s'etof 

I confess I should like to know how much of all these several ingredients must 
enter into the composition of a loyal man, and then how many this laborious com- 
mittee must sample in order that they may accurately determine for us the charac- 
ter of the whole lot. 

Mr. President, I cannot conceive of anything so utterly absurd and ridiculous as 
this pretense of inquiring into the loyalty of the people anywhere, in a time of 
peace, when nobody pretends there is a flagrant war. Does any sane man believe 
any good will ever come out of it ? 

But it may be said that the committee only inquire as to the condition of States, 
not people. If so, I would ask to what characteristic element of States they have 
turned their attention? Is it to their constitutions as the limitation of their powers 
put upon them by the people? Or do they look at the mode and manner by which 
they provide for the organization of the State? Or will they go behind even thtir 
constitutions themselves, and icquire wliether there was fraud, duress, or undue in- 
fluence used upon the people to such an extent as to vitiate these instruments and 
nullify them ? 

If they look at the limitations only, can they eay these are too few or too many; 
that the sovereignty is too much restrained or too much abandoned? And how 
long does this require for eleven constitutions? Have the committee read them? 
Have they got them? And how? By private enterprise, or by the usual re'"er- 
ence? And suppose the examination made: what is the standard of the committee 
to try them? And if they thought them or any of them not made as they would 
have made them, what are they going to do about it? 

They have not told us. 

If it is the mode of organization they look into, what is their guide? Do they 
inquire into the primary distribution of political power or the right of suffrage? 
And if they concluded this was improper, would the State be free if they could im- 
pose terms and compel a modification ? Would a form of government imposed upon 
a State by compulsion be a republican form, the Federalist to the contrary notwith- 
standing? All these are nuts for the committee to crack. 

Again, can they inquire into the duress of the people in forming these constitu- 
tions? If so, who alleges it? Who imposed it? And who can remedy it, if not 
the people? And if the people, who now hinders the people from doing so? Can- 
not we make them free now to have their own way as they ought to have it under 
•our system? 

Mr. President, all these labors of the committee seem so ludicrous and extravagant 
that it is hardly possible to treat them with becoming gravity, especially as we 
have seen that the results are still less than the throes which gave them birth. We 
want information as to the condition of certain States, and we are treated to an 
amendment to the Constitution and « legal opinion — bad law at tliat. Is the pro- 
posed amendment germaine to the function of the committee; is it within the scope 
of its authority ; or is it a mere ebullition of the Constitution, making rage which 
seems to darken the visages of all members of Congress nowadays? I propose to 
trespass upon the Senate a dissection of it, and I hope they will witness the opera- 
tion patientl}'. What I have to do with it may as well be done now. 

What does this amendment mean? 

Mr. President, the amendment means this : that the several States of the Union 
may have full and entire control over the political status of all their people, except 
the negro; without incurring any penalty whatever; but if they do not choose to 
intrust him with the franchise of an elector then they are to be daprived of all rep- 
resentatiojffor him in Congress. In other words, we care nothing about any one 
else; our sJ)le business in this respect is to protect the negro. 

"Race and colour" is your touch-stone. Do anything you will to the poor, to the 
foreign-born, to the unfortnate, to the woman, to the minor, to anybody but to the 
man of color, the man of a different raee from ourselves, to him you must be gener- 
ous, even to the sharing of dominion with him 

Let us see, if we can, how race and color at this time demand such especial con- 
sideration over and above all other disabilities ; because, as I have said before, no 
other is taken into account. The States may debar for want of money, learning, 
residence, height, weight, or any other measure they may see fit to adopt, but they 
must not touch race and color. They may refuse the right to a man who cannot 
read, and you have no rebuke for this, you have no penalty to impose. Why not, 
I would ask? If the States are competent to protect the unleareed soldier wtio 
cannot read the Constitution, why are they not good enough to be guardians of 



10 

the negroes who can ? You commit tlie one in all confidence to their tender mer- 
cies, and yet the other you must heiige round -with a constitutional amendment 
because of race and color. What did you say to this unlettered soldier when your 
armies were to be re(!ruited and j'our diaft quotas filled? Did you examine into 
his literary qualifications then, or t>-!l him it was necessary then to have a certain 
amount of constitutional learning, or did you say it was enough for him if he could 
give and rtceive ihe countersign ? Do not your pay-rolls show you took his mark 
as a valid signature, as valid as the struke of his sabre and the thrust of his bayonet 

And yet you leave him to the mercy of the States. Why do you do this? How 
do you intend to appologize to the men who fought your battles? How do you 
expect to conciliate the Army by thus abandoning the unlettered soldier at a point 
where he may be disfranchised even by Massachusetts ? 

Again, the States are competent to deal with the question of the age at which 
the voter is qualified. They may fix it at eighteen or thirty, or at any other age, 
without penalty. They can do the same with regard to residence. They can re- 
quire the voter to reside in one spot ten days or ten years before voting, and yet 
you do not restrain them. « 

You leave, too, at the mercy of the States the poor man ; they have the right to 
dir-franchise him to any extent. Is he not, too, a man and a brother? And upon 
what pritjeiple can you punish his povertj' as a disqualification ? It may be the 
result of unavoidable misfortune, the le.-ult of the visitation of God, or the act of 
the public enemy. It may be from defective organization, or may have been from 
the very excess of his virtues. Yet no one has ever suggested an amendment of 
the Constitution to protect him against the State in which he lives. It is not a ques- 
tion of race and color. 

You talk of taxation without representation, and you apply it not to the whole 
community, but to certain classes of the community. If so, how do you exclude 
the thousands of women all over the country who are pursued by your tax-gath- 
erers with as much rigor as if they were all members of Congress? Yet they are 
at the will of the States disfranchised now, and most likely will continue to be so. 
Did it not strike the committee of fifteen that something might be done for this 
meritorious class of our tax-payers? Is it composed wholly of single men, widowed 
or celibate ? It involves no question of race or color. 

Why should the foreigner who seeks our shores to aid us in establishing a glorious 
Republic where the people shall alone bear rule, run the risk of having to stand back 
at the bidding of a State, deprived of his franchise? How could he help the cause of 
his exclusion? It is very clear that he could not come to this country before he 
was born ; and if that event happened in foreign parts, I do not see, sir, how he 
could avoid it or postpone it until be could be ushered in with the Declaration of 
Independence in his pocket, and be swaddled in the starry folds of the national flag. 
He comes as soon as he could, and surely stands on as fair footing as those who did 
not come at all, or had to be brought. 

But, Mr. President, I have an®ther objection to this amendment, which is fatal, I 
think. It will be observed that th« committee who have reported this bill were 
appointed by Congress in order to inquire into the condition of States in which 
these negroes reside, it being alleged here that their people were so traitorous, dia- 
bolical, and malignant toward the Fedei'al Government and the negroes that they 
ought not to be allowed the privilege of representation in Congress along with their 
taxation, and the committee was to report thereon. Now, after weeks of inquiry, 
I infer the committee thinks that alleu;ation true, because surely, if it did not, it 
would not keep eleven sovereign States, deprived of that first and dearest of all 
righta, standing outside the legislative Halls where the laws are made which are to 
govern them. I say, then, they must i ave found or believed the people of those 
States were very bad people, or they would not have kept them out. 

Well, sir, this august committee, which, as I said some dnya ago, carries at its 
girdle the keys of the Union, and upon whose terrible fiat the rights of sovereign 
States depend ; this committee proposes in this amendment to sell out four million 
(radical count) negroes to the bud people of those St&tes forever and ever. In con- 
sideration of what, I am asked — oh, shame, where is thy blush! I answer, in dust 
and ashes, for about sixteen members of Congress. Has there ever been before, sir, 
in the history of this or any other country, such a stupendous sale of negroes as 
that? Never, never 1 It is saying to the southern States, you may have these 
millions of human beings whom we love so dearly, and whom you hate so inteiisely, 
and about whom we have said so much, and for whom we have done so much ; you 
may do with them as you please in the way of legislative discrimination against 
them, if you will only agr«e not to count them at the next census, except as your 
sheep and oxen arj counted ; waive your right to sixteen members of Congress, and 
the great compromise is sealed; the long agony is over; the nation's dead are 
avenged ; the nation's tears are dried ; and the nation's politics are relieved of the 
negro. 



11 

Again, this proposition presenting an alternative to the States, we have a right to 
suppose its authors intend to be satisfied, no matter which horn of the dileniiua is 
taken; if the States enfranchise the negro they are satisfied ; if, on tlie otlier htnd, 
they waive their riglit to the sixteen members of Congress, they are satisfie 1 ; and 
if this latter should turn out to be a swap of negroes in exchange for increased po- 
litical power, then they are satisfied. 

"Call you that backing of your friends?" No wonder many of the friends of hu- 
manity threaten to "starve ere they will rob a foot further in such company." I 
admire their spirit, and will strengthen their firmuesn if it needs it. 

The conclusion then is inevitable that the committee are perfectly willing that 
the States sliall have unlimited rights over all people except the negro, the man 
distinguished by race and color, and as to him, Lhey can also have these rights if 
they will yield their present right to sixteen members of Congress. And I might 
ask, does any man doubt what the States ought to do, nay, what they will do in 
the event this amendment becomes a part of the Constitution? Will they on any 
account, much less on account of a member of Congress or two in each State, agree 
to share political power with the negro? vVill they consent to make him the custo- 
dian of the institutions of their fathers, himself the helpless, degraded ward of the 
Freedmen's Bureau? "Will they open the door for hi^ admission to a seat in their 
magisterial chairs, their legislative assemblies, or to wear the ermine in their courts 
of justice? \^ ill they consent to enlarge the field wherein passion sows and dema- 
gogues reap, wherein the tribal antipathies of the races will be the terrible levers 
to be used by the tribal demagogues on both sides ? Can they possibly accept this 
insidious invitation to antagonize their people in that most dangerous strife of all, 
the strife of politics, where the lust of ambition and the love of money engender 
together a brood of demons delighting in conflagration, massacre, and war? To 
suppose it, sir, is to suppose the country gone mad, ready to rush on to its own 
destruction. No midnight witches in the interest of revolution ever threw into 
their fearful cauldron such a quantity of black ingiedients as is here contemplated, 
and none could form such a charm of powerful trouble. No one wi o knows the 
strife of races can think of the consequences without a shudder. 

Mr. President, I have shown, I think, bej^ond the possibility of dispute, that this 
amendment cares nothing really for the interests, rights, and liberties of white 
people, and really verj^ little for black people, but that the great pui'pose disclosed 
by it is to punish the States in which negroes reside by diminishing their rights of 
representation, and in the same ratio increasing the political power of the States 
having no black population. In other words, it is a scheme to transfer political 
power in Congress from one section of the Union and give it to another section. 
Here, sir, we have reason to congratulate ourselves that the framers of the amend- 
ment were not as sagacions as they were bold, not as wise as they were enter- 
prising. Their work is palpably defective, even to effectuate their own purposes, 
and their machinery is so clumsy of contrivance as to render it useless. 

As I have said before, their object is to deprive certain States of a part of their 
political power or else compel them to allow negroes to vote; and to achieve this, 
they provide "that Whenever the elective franchise shall be denied or abtidged in 
any State on account of race or color, all persons therein of such race or color 
shall be excluded from the basis of representation." Now, I submit there are 
many ways of denying or abridging the right in question besides putting it on the 
ground of race and color, which are not in themselves reasons for the denial or 
abridgment in any case, but are mere words of description by which a class oi 
people are excluded. Now, if that class can be described by any other equally 
precise and definite terms, then these may be discarded and the reason for the 
exclusion still remain as before. 

Now, the negro is not now, never was, excluded, either on account of his race or 
color; surely not on account of his race, for the large majority of the people every- 
where believe that he is of our race, descended from our Adam, and entitled to be 
made alive in Christ the same as other men are. Nor is it on account of his color 
for if &11 to be hereafter born were Albinos, as many are, it would make no differ- 
ence, so far as the real reason is concerned. What is really the true reason foi his 
exclusion ? It is not that he is not a man, or that he is a colored man, but that he 
is an inferior man — an inferior article of man. Now, if a State denied sufl"rage to 
negroes on account of general ignorance, vice, or what not, this amendment would 
not punish the exclusion; it cannot be construed beyond its terms. 

Another objection is the uncertainty of the clause. Is it meant that all of the 
colored race in a State shall vote, men, women, and children ? I suppose not; but 
if not, where is the abridgment or denial to bejjiu which begets the forfeiture? 
Suppose it is confined, as in Massachusetts or in New York, that would not be a 
denial; would it be an unconstitutional abridgment? And how long would it 
take Congress to decide it on an apportionment bill? Cromwell's democratic 



il 



12 

House worked three weeks on the meaning of the word " incumbrances ;" this is a 
much more knotty puzzle. 

Affain, would the denial of ihe right to blacVs forfeit the right to represettations 
for the yellow, and if not how are the several shades of color to be distinguished ? 
Will all the classes have to be ki^pt separate or not? These and a hundred other 
difficulties might be stated, and no deliberative assembly could solve them, what- 
eve a court might do under the maxim that construction must make the clause 
avail, and not destroy it. But could it be avoided? What would prevent a State 
from expending the francViise before the apportionment to all, and after it was made 
withdrawing it? Congress could not reapportion for ten years, and the same pro- 
cess would serve again to defeat this provision at the end of that time. 

I know, sir, that it will be said that these objections are fine-spun, frivolous, &e., 
but to all who have listened to the debates which arise here upon the true import 
of phrases the meaning of which has been settled for hundreds of years, they will 
not appear so. Who could have foreseen that the phrase ' to coin money" could 
have been construed to give the right to issue United States notes, that is, to 
" coin money out of lampblack and rags," of leather, cloth, or anything you choose 
with or without reference to intrinsic value? Who coiild have foreseen an elabor- 
ate argument to prove the fugitive slave clause in the Constitution did not warrant 
the rendition of slaves, but orly absconding white apprentices? No, sir, the rule 
is to cavil on the ninth part of a hair, and those who are ambitious of fame as Con- 
stitution-makers should look to it. 

But. sir, I now come to a different class of objections, which in my judgment are 
sufficient to make all prudent men hesitate in the face of a proposition of this kind, 
made at the time, in the manner, and in the interest this is made. First, the pro- 
position in itself is revolutionary, striking directly at the freedom of the several 
States, and if accomplished will overturn the Government down to its very founda- 
tions. Revolutionary, because it seeks to influeuee the free distribution of politi- 
cal power in the States by saying to them. " If you do not bestow a portion of it 
upon a particular class of your people we will deprive you of it to the same extent 
your deprive them." 

Now, if there is any one thing more than another vital to the existence of a free 
State, which, indeed is of its very essence, it is that the people of such State shall 
say of themselves, without exteinal dictation, who shall and who shall not be the 
depositories of their political power; in other words, who shall do their voting, 
who shall east their ballots ; and ony attempt on the part of any power outside the 
State to compel them in any way to do in that behalf what they are unwilling to 
do is just so much sheer tyranny, and sets such outside power over that inside, 
making it the master. What right would New York have to compel New Jersey 
to admit a certain class of her people to this privilege? Or Pennsylvania to com- 
pel Maryland ? Would not these weaker States feel that such an attempt would be 
fatal to their independence? They would say at once that this rigl>t of theirs was 
vital, and to yield it would be to yield their freedom itself. Then, if New York or 
Pennsylvania have no supervisory rights of this kind, in what way could they ac- 
quire them by joining wiih them the rest of the States or any number of them? 
The clause is revolutionarj" and destructive, just as m\ich so as to attempt to com- 
pel the people of a State to elect such officers as might be pointed out to her by the 
United State for that purpose, because everybody knows that the elector in the 
States is just as much the creature of the people, just as much elected and chosen 
by them to vote as the officers are elected to hold offices. What would be thought 
of a proposition to amesd the Constitution to compel the States each to send one 
negro member to Congress? Yet this amendment auiounts to just the same thing 
in a roundabout way. It really says to certain States, if you do not elect a few 
negroes, you shall not elect anybody else instead; we will diminish the number to 
which you are now entitled in the same ratio as you discard them. 

Mr. President, whenever the Constitution is amended in this part of it, then there 
is no United States; there will be no States ; all will be consolidated into one great 
central despotisim, in which the States v ill plr.y the part of provinces, and all the 
safeguard we now have in the freedom of the people will be gone forever. 

I know many will say this amendment is fair because it will not hUow repre- 
sentation for a class of people who have no voice in public affairs. But this, sir, 
is founded in misapprehension. Our system is not one of class representation in 
any case, but the representation of communities, and when the community is repre- 
sented all classes in it are represented, although the great majority have not, and 
many cannot have a representation of their own. The Irish and Germans of 
Pennsylvania never think of claiming for themselves a class representation, neither 
do the various trades and occupations, but all are looked upon as constituting a 
unit for the purposes of State government, a unit for counties, cities, towns, &c., 
and there can be nothing unfair in the fact that any class is excluded : it only 
shows that its power in the community is subordinate to one superior. 



13 

others say that by the abolition of slavery two-fifths is added to the basis of the 
late slave representation, which, being the rtsuii of an accident not contemplated 
at the time, ought not to be allowed to remain for the advantage of the slave 
States. To this 1 answer, that from all we can learn, the number ot these negroes 
in 1870 will more than likely be two-tifibs less than it was in 1860, owing to their 
increased mortality resulting from the war, from the change iu their mode of life, 
and the withdrawal of the master's care over them. But whether or not, the free- 
dom of the States is worth more a thousand times, c.^pt cially to the smaller ones, 
than all the increase of power they would gain by this amendment. 

I am opposed to it, however, on other grounds. It is proposed to be carried by 
a minority party, for it will be recollected that there was nearly a million of a 
popular majority against Mr. Lincoln in 1860, when ali the States voted. They 
are all now back again, and I am inclined to think, unless we change our conduct 
toward them, there will not be a large number of them disposed to vote with the 
Republicans in the future. You will be in a minority again, and the majority will 
manifest itself by a return to power and place. Do you suppose they will not be 
disposed to do a little tinkering at the Conatitution, too ? These patches of yours 
look very unseemly to them, and they may take a notion to rip them off and put 
on some of their own not quite to please you. Indeed, 1 can conceive how they 
might affect you or some ot you even on this very tender point of representation. 
They might take it into their heads to make the Senate national instead of Federal ; 
and seeing you can do so much, being a minority, what do you think they cannot 
do, being a majority? 

Besides, you are only able to do this to them by shutting them out of these 
Halls; they may be strong enough to do it to you even while allowing you to be 
present to witness the operation. Now, sir, I would much rather let ali this alone 
than run the risk of having the same bitter chalice come bacii to our own lips in 
the future. 

It must also be evident to any sagacious man that an amendment to the Consti- 
tution which can only operate upon a particular section of the countr}', and which 
is proposed by Congress at a time when that section has no representation there, 
would not be worth a straw. Communities do not submit to such things so tamely, 
and sooner or later they manage to come out victorious over all such attempts to 
take advantage of their weakness. God himself may aid them. Who knows ? 

Besides this, sir, it would not be hard to show that none of these projects for 
amending the Constitution come from the people, or are demanded by the people 
with that earnest and decisive significance which ought always to precede organic 
changes such as this purports to be. How many people have petitioned for this 
change? Certainly 1 should think fifteen or twenty thousand would cover the 
whole of them, liow small a part of the thirty millions to be affected ; and what 
a narrow foundation upon which to base a change of a Constitution? 

But that is not the worst of it. We do know that a very large majority of the 
Republican party are opposed to any change. They have made great sacrifices to 
enforce the Constitution. They look upon it as the ark of our Union covenant, and 
they will permit no meddlesome Uzzah to lay officious hands upon it upon pretense 
that it requires his aid to steady it along. 

Then it is equally clear that the other half of the people of the North, the demo- 
■cratic party, is also opposed to this and all similar measures. In fact, upon negro 
suffrage they are a unit in opposition. 

But the worst opposition, and the one most to be respected, is in the States where 
it alone would be felt; and on the whole I think it may be safely said that but a 
very small part of the whole people can be said to favor it. 

1 now come to the resolution of the committee which proposes to stop agitation 
and quiet the country by declaring that eleven States shall not have representation 
in Congress or either branch of the same until Congress shall have declared such 
State entitled to such representation. 

Now, let us for one instant contemplate this most extraordinary proposition. la 
it not a virtual setting aside or suspension of the Constitution itself until Congress 
shall be moved to declare it restored ? 

That instrument declares that — 

"Representatives'' #**»«= "shall be apportioned among the several States 
which may be included within this Union according to their respective numbers," &c. 

And by an act of Congress of March 4, 1862, a certain number of Representatives 
fifty-six, were apportioned to the eleven States in question, fixing by law their 
constitutional right in this behalf. 

The resolution before us sets all that at naught, and declares that these States 
shall have no representation at all till Congress shall so decide. The Constitution 
further declares that — 

"Ths Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State." 



14 

And this resolution declares that eleven States shall have no Senators at all till 
Congress shall so decide 

Now, it is well to know whether Congress or the Constitution is supreme in this 
respect. We have been in the habit of thiiking Congress was but the creatTire of 
the Constitution; that its title to rule and legislate for the people was under and 
by virtue of that instrument. How, then, does it assume to disrea:ard it? Has 
the Sabbath become greater than the Lord of the Sabbath ? Has the stream risen 
above the fountain ? 

But it is said these Slates have been in rebellion. Well, suppose they have. 
Rebellion is treason ; treason is a crime, and ought to be punished. But can Con- 
gress inflict that puaishment ? The Constitution saj's emphatically : 

"\o bill of attaindtr or ex post facto law shall be passed." 

Kow, if Congress were to ppss this resolution, it would be both ; because it is a 
bill which of itself inflicts the privation of right upon the people of eleven Statee 
as a punishment for their alleged treason, which is a species of attainder known as 
a " bill of pains and penalties," and which ha^ been held to be included in the pro- 
hibition of " bills of attainder." Again, even if that barrier was not in the way, 
there is another equally impassable, lying in this. Up until this time it has never 
been the law of the Uuited State-! that a community could be punished at all en 
masse, either for treason or anyshing else, and if Congress were tc attempt it now 
as a punishment for crimes already committed, it -would be null and void ; it would 
be an " ex post facto law," and one expressly forbidden. 

The whole is monstrous no matter in what light it may be viewed. We have 
seen how small a number of traitors there were even in the worst parts of the 
South, and that after the people of all classes had been left by the Federal Govern- 
ment at the mercy of these fiends, men, women, and children ; after they had suf- 
fered all the miseries of war as the consequence, then to turn round to them and 
say to them, " We will not punish the rebels who are guilty, and who have brought 
all these misfortunes upon you, but we will punish you who are innocent." Instead 
of saying to the traitors " We will hang you for treason," you say to the innocent 
people, " We will keep you out of Congress," Think of it 

We have no right to do this, either by law or in morals, and just as long as we 
persist in it, just so long will we be the allies of disunion, andenemi s to the peace of 
the country. We hear it said here very often that in order to enable us to judge cor- 
rectly and act advisedl}' in this matter we ought to have a geneial recognition of 
the State government* by Congres?, that we may act together and avoid conflict. 
All this is plausible, but mischievous, because there is really not a doubt that the 
present State governments are in the sole and undisputed possession of their sev- 
eral States, and are obeyed cheerfully as such. And the pretense tiuit they require 
investigation and legislation to restore their relations with the Federal Government 
is only urged as it- indirectly attains the end so much to be deprecated, namely, 
that of punishing the people in an unlawful and unconstitutional manner. 

Another and fatil objection to the couree proposed in this resolution is that it 
providts for the joint action of the House and Senate in a matter which it is of the 
greatest moment she :ld be kept entirely separate. If joint action can take place 
incases of this kind, then the advantages which the country expecied, and which 
it has realized, in the Senate of the United States, are lost to it peihaps forever. 

The constitutions of the two Houses are entirely different. The Mouse of Repre- 
sentiitives is national, representing numbers ; the Senate is Federal, representing 
States. The great States of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, are therefore 
potent in the House, but in the Senate, Rhode Island, Delaware, V^ermont, and 
New Hampshire are their equals, and serve as a kind of breakwat^-r to prevent the 
efi"ects of the sudden impulses of such heavy population a& inhabit tlie States first 
named. The Senate is indeed the bulwark of the smaller States, ond they ought 
therefore to be the especial guardians of the Constitutions, because it is only by 
maintaining the strictest reverence for it they can expect to maintain their equal 
rights. I have been much surprised therefore to find Senators on this floor, whose 
interests of all others were most in danger, show such apatiiy with regard to 
these innovations, which if they are ever to become precedents wiii assuredly work 
the destruction of the lesser States. 

Now, the Constitution expressly provides that — 

"Each House shall he the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own mem- 
bers." 

A provision that must strike every one at first eight as neces.-ary if the bodies 
are to be a chei-k one upon the other. Because if the Senate bad t'.) decide who 
shall gt.1 into the House or who shnll not go in, the House would scon become the 
creature of the Senate and dependent upon it for its existence; and -so it the Senate 



15 

were to allow the House the same rights over its members. This resolution, 
however, very ingeniously selects only a single point upon which to apply the joint 
action complained of, and thpt is this : that both Houses shall jointly decide which 
are the States entitled to representation. That is the whole of it 

Now, Mr. President, can anything be clearer than that this very question has 
been already settled authoritaiively beyond dispute? Has not the Constitution set- 
tled it? Is it not to be found on every line and page of our laws — and especially 
in the act of March 4, 1862? 

Then, if this be so, the joint committee prevents the Senate from deciding on the 
elections, returns, and qualifications of itH members, because it gets behind the 
whole and denies the right of States to members at all. It does not deny but that 
they have Legislatures competent to elect — if it did the answer would be obvious: 
the Senate will decide that on the question of elections — but it declares at once, 
boldly, that although the people of these States are desirous of submitting to the 
laws they offended against, we will impose upon them a new penalty not known to 
the law. » 

Mr. President, I think I have shown beyond question that at the breaking 
out of the rebellion there was not any considerable number of people, in any of 
the States in question, who ever were guilty of treason to the United States, if we 
admit the law to be as I hold it is, namely, that if the legitimate Government of 
any country suffers itself to be dispossessed and a hostile Government to be estab- 
blished and put in possession in its stead, so that it cannot protect its citizens in 
their resistance to such hostile Government, then it cannot punish them for acts 
done afterward under the authority of and in obedience to the hostile Government; 
such acts cannot amount to treason and the law excuses them. 

I think I have also shown that the moment the rebels yield and surrender, that 
they are immediately in the custody of the law, and can only be subjectel to such 
punishment as it provides — to be inflicted upon them through the courts according 
to "due process" of law. 

I have shown that for any guilty part taken by the people in the late war, that 
the sufferings and losses they endured in that war were the natural and sufficient 
punishment; that after it they remain purged, and ought to be remitted to all their 
constitutional rights at once. 

That it is due to the dignity of the United States a? a great nation, if she pun- 
ishes the actual traitors who incited the rebellion, that it be done solemnly and 
according to the strictest form of law, in open courts, where the prisoners may 
have counsel and witnesses, so that they may make their defense, if they have 
any. 

That according to the Constitution and laws all the States are still in the Union; 
that secession ordinances could not repeal the one, nor war set a^ide the other; 
that they are neither dead by forfeiture or fdo de se, but are now in full and per- 
fect existence with all their municipal machinery in full play. 

That the proposition of the committee of fifteen to amend the Constitution is 
fundamental and revolutionary, and destructive of the freedom of the States and 
the liberties of the people ; that it is a threat to deprive them of their rights by 
compelling them either to admit negroes to the right of suffrage or to give up a 
share of their representation which is theirs by law and the last amendment to 
the Constitution. 

That the resolution now before us from the same committee is also revolutionary 
and destructive, being an attempt to suspend the Constitution and laws in regard 
to representation in Congress over eleven States of the Union until Congress shall 
see fit to restore them. It is a declaration on the part of the members of the 
present House and Senate, that having the means of keeping these States from 
being represented here, they are going to do so as long as they please; that no one 
of these measures can be justified as a punishment for the rebellion; that the Con- 
stitution forbids them as bills of pains and penalties, and as ex post facto in their 
character. 

Then, sir, here at the conclusion, I will endeavor to answer a question which 
has been so often put; and with that air of braggart triumph that indicates an 
answer impossible. The question is this: "Would you bring back here into the 
Senate rebels and traitors, the authors of all our troubles, whose hands are yet red 
with the blood of our slaughtered people? And if not, how do you propose to 
avoid it unless you deny these States representation for a time at least? ' 

To all this I answer, no, as emphatically as any other Senator can do; but I 
would keep them cu^ in a very different way from that proposed. I would keep 
them out by following the mode and seeking the remedy afforded by the Constitu- 
tion and laws, instead of adopting a cource forbiddt-n by boili and unjust in ittelf. 
I would keep out traitors, not beep out Siatts; 1 wu\ild punish criminuls, and not 
enslave communities; I would single out tht guilty, and njt confound the inno- 
«eQt with them. 



16 

l3 not this easy? When the traitor asks admis.^ion here, you can arrest him for 
his treason ; you can commit him for trial ; and the offense is not bailable. I sup- 
pose ever} body will agree that would keep him out, at least till he is tried. It has 
another great advantage, too; it is lawful and none can complain of it. 

After the trial, if acquitted, he is not a traitor, and his case presents no difficulty. 
If l.e is convicted, ittaiiited, and hanged, 1 suppose that would allay all fears of 
his retui-n 

Now, Mr. President, when I think how obvious and effectua' this plan would be, 
I am amazed that it should have ever entered into the human mind to contrive 
another Why is it not adopted? Sir, I am afraid to aeswer. I am afraid there 
are patriots who would prefer to let treason go unwhipped rather than they should 
lisk thfir own hold on power. It looks to me much like that; and if so, I am 
sorrythat tny man can be so short sighted as not to see the fatal consequences of 
such an exchange as this. Does it not say, your treason may go if you let us rule 
the country? 

0*e word more and I am done. The country is alarmed, the people are anxious, 
and the political atmosphere bodes the coming of no common storm. What can 
we do to prevent it and bring back peace to the country arid harmony to the party? 
Is there no common ground on which we can stand ? Is there no common standard 
round which we can rally ? I think there is, sir. Surely, we ^lay go back to the 
Constitution which we have all sworn to support. We can go back to the laws and 
e .force them without dissension among oursf-lves. Then there are things which 
we may avoid doing. We may avoid new measures on which we cannot agree, and 
which only serve as wedges to split us further and further asunder. 

Mr. President, why these new measures ? Wlio is bound to the support of a new 
measure except the author of it? AVhat member of a party is bound to a new 
measure not in contemplation of the party at the time it was organized, at the 
time its p'atform was ^aid down, except the author; and if disseosion and division 
spring up from the new measure, who is responsible for that ? The man who stands 
on the record, or the man who introduces the new measure? The man who catches 
the foxes and ties the fire brand to their tails so ns to send them into the standing 
corn, or the men who do not ? These are questions that the country a'e beginning 
to ask. They wi'l ask who did this thing, who brought this about? Was the 
Freedman's Bureau in the Baltimore platform? Wts it in the Chicago platform! 
Where did the party agree to that as a party ? Where was that laid down as a 
line to which ali party men should come? The pretense is absurd. The Freed- 
men's Bureau bill is not now and never was a party measure, except with some few 
people who took it into their heads that it was a very good thing. Nobody blam- 
ed them for that; they had a right to believe that; "but other people who did not 
believe it are not to be ostracized on that account, particularly if those who did 
not believe it thought that in itself it was not only inexpedient and impolitic, but 
that it was uncorsiitutional. 

Now, Mr. President, I say the country is beginning to inquire who introduced 
this cause of dissension ; who started this wedge which is to drive and drive until 
it splits the great Republican party? I say it is per^'ectly plain that he is the man 
who started the new ineaiure, the man wlio persists in it, the man who ostracizes 
and denounces everybody who differs with him uboiit it. I think, Mr. President, 
that is so plain that he who runs may read. Certainly there can be no doubt about 
that. -^ ^ 

Then, in conclusion, I have only to say that if we refuse these moderate coun- 
sels, if we refuse to abandon these new things, the only remedy will be to take 
the consequence.^ and they sellom linger long behind the act. 

L. Towers, printer, cor. Sisth St. and Loui.siana Ave., Washington, D. C. 



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